Saturday, December 22, 2007

Friday Dec 21, 2007

Today was a psuedo-recovery day. I usually take Fridays really easy with just one 1:20-30 run, but since I took Wednesday completely off, I figured I could afford to get in some extra miles today.

Or, so was my theory. It was a pretty rough day of running. This morning was still really warm--almost 50F degrees at 6am--so it was great weather, but my quads, lower legs, and ankles were all pretty worked from the longer run yesterday evening. I'm still just trying to get into shape, that's for sure. I took my southern loop through the Garden (Ute Trail to Niobrara Trail) and gradually felt better and better as the run went on, but was glad to be done by the end. Also, the fantastic sunrise/alpenglow in the Garden is absolutely worth noting.

I didn't leave the CRC until after 2pm, and by then it had actually started snowing. The high for the day was definitely in the morning. By time I got out to run, it was 25F and a full-blown blizzard with quite the windchill. The main thing about this run was just how uncomfortable my legs were. My ankles and shins hurt so I just took it as easy as possible.

Upon finishing I started scavenging for any food I could find. All I'd eaten all day was a banana and a granola bar, so I was pretty hungry. I don't want to go to the grocery store because I'm going to be heading home this weekend for the holidays, so I've been surviving off all the food (not much) that Jocelyn and her roommates left in the house. I ended up finishing a bag of stale tortilla chips with moldy queso salsa and eating some cereal using water-diluted Half & Half as milk. Quality stuff.

The ideal in the Lieh-Tzu is a state, not of withdrawal, but of heightened perceptiveness and responsiveness in an undifferentiated world. My mind concentrated and my body relaxed, bones and flesh fused completely, I drifted with the wind East or West, like a leaf from a tree or a dry husk, and never knew whether it was the wind that rode me or I that rode the wind. -The Book of Lieh-Tzu